Ordinary speech uses language mostly for a limited
practical utility of communication; it uses it for life and for the expression
of ideas and feelings necessary or useful to life. In doing so, we treat words
as conventional signs for ideas with nothing but a perfunctory attention to
their natural force, much as we use any kind of common machine or simple
implement; we treat them as if, though useful for life, they were themselves
without life. When we wish to put a more vital power into them, we have to lend
it to them out of ourselves, by marked intonations of the voice, by the
emotional force or vital energy We, throw into the sound so as to infuse into
the conventional word-sign something which is not inherent in itself. But if we
go back earlier in the history of language and still more if we look into its
origins: we shall, I think, find that it was not always so with human speech.
Words had not only a real and vivid life of their own, but the speaker was more
conscious of it; than we can possibly be with our mechanised and sophisticated
intellects. This arose from the primitive nature of language which, probably,
in its first movement was not intended,—or shall we say, did not intend,—so
much to stand for distinct ideas of the intelligence as for feelings, sensations,
broad indefinite mental impressions with minute shades of quality in them which
we do not now care to pursue. The intellectual sense in its precision must have
been a secondary element which grew, more dominant as language evolved. ~ Sri
Aurobindo [The Future Poetry, p. 12]
Immortality
Foil'd by our fellow-men, depress'd, outworn,
We leave the brutal world to take its way,
And, Patience! in another life, we say
The world shall be thrust down, and we up-borne.
And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn
The world's poor, routed leavings? or will they,
Who fail'd under the heat of this life's day,
Support the fervours of the heavenly morn?
No, no! the energy of life may be
Kept on after the grave, but not begun;
And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife,
From strength to strength advancing only he,
His soul well-knit, and all his battles won,
Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.
Matthew Arnold
Tyger! Tyger!
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye.
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat.
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp.
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile His work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
William Blake
The
Undertaking
I have done one braver thing
Than all the Worthies did;
And yet a braver thence doth spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.
It were but madness now to impart
The skill of specular stone,
When he, which can have learn'd the art
To cut it, can find none.
So, if I now should utter this,
Others—because no more
Such stuff to work upon, there is—
Would love but as before.
But he who loveliness within
Hath found, all outward loathes,
For he who color loves, and skin,
Loves but their oldest clothes.
If, as I have, you also do
Virtue in woman see,
And dare love that, and say so too,
And forget the He and She;
And if this love, though placèd so,
From profane men you hide,
Which will no faith on this bestow,
Or, if they do, deride;
Then you have done a braver thing
Than all the Worthies did;
And a braver thence will spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.
John Donne
The Donkey
When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.
The Song of
Quoodle
They haven't got no noses,
The fallen sons of Eve;
Even the smell of roses
Is not what they supposes;
But more than mind discloses
And more than men believe.
They haven't got no noses,
They cannot even tell
When door and darkness closes
The park a Jew encloses,
Where even the law of Moses
Will let you steal a smell.
The brilliant smell of water,
The brave smell of a stone,
The smell of dew and thunder,
The old bones buried under,
Are things in which they blunder
And err, if left alone.
The wind from winter forests,
The scent of scentless flowers,
The breath of brides' adorning,
The smell of snare and warning,
The smell of Sunday morning,
God gave to us for ours
And Quoodle here discloses
All things that Quoodle can,
They haven't got no noses,
They haven't got no noses,
And goodness only knowses
The Noselessness of
[The song of the dog named Quoodle]
G.K. Chesterton